depth of sky
by acronymed
Summary: AU. "I don't believe in faeries," he said, and then he met one. — Roxas/Kairi. Discontinued.
1. R — the one with the empty looking eyes

**A/N:** I really need to quit it with all the multichaptered fanfics, I'm starting. Really, this is the third one. But, I love Roxas/Kairi, so it evens out. This is a prologue, hence the shortness.

**Dedication:** Zanisha, Mishee and Rae, because I can.

**Summary:** AU. "I don't believe in faeries," he said, and then he met one. RoxasKairi.

**Disclaimer:** All Kingdom Hearts & Final Fantasy characters used belong to their respective owners. The song is also not mine. Everything else is, though.

* * *

**Depth Of Sky  
**ROXAS: The One With The Empty Looking Eyes  
(Stars — "_Take Me To The Riot_")

* * *

Roxas was twelve when he had his first supernatural encounter.

After three years of friendship, he'd become accustomed to waiting for Sora after school every day – whether it be for five minutes or forty-five – in the rain, snow or sunshine. Sora stopped giving him excuses long ago (somewhere around the fourth grade, when Roxas had become a realist and saying he'd been attacked by dinosaurs didn't work, and he wasn't nearly a good enough liar to come up with something on the spot), but Roxas still waited.

Today wasn't any different. When Sora wasn't outside ten minutes after the bell rang, Roxas figured it was going to be one of _those _days and sat down on an unoccupied piece of concrete. Kids were still filing out of the school, backpacks slung over one shoulder or hanging from their fists. A couple of girls waved shyly at him as they passed.

Not long after that, the parking lot began to empty. Roxas moved from middle of the stairs to the bottom and leaned against the handrail. It was _definitely_ going to be one of _those_ days. He sighed and pressed his palm to his forehead. At least it was raining, instead of blaringly hot like it'd been the week before. That didn't make the wait any less annoying, though.

He sighed again, and it wasn't until his arm was elbow deep in his bag, fingers searching for his headphones, that he saw her. She was hard to miss, just standing across the street and staring at him as if she were waiting for him to see her. Red hair, pale skin, blue eyes. And not the kind of blue that made you think of the sky – they were something deeper, something almost… darker, even though everything about this girl just screamed light to him.

They were blue. A true blue, beyond anything he could describe.

He was so busy staring at her eyes (from at least fifteen feet away, too _what the hell this makes no sense how am I seeing her e –)_ that healmost missed her wings. Almost. But then he saw them, and he could've slapped himself for not noticing them first, because, seriously, she had wings and they were shimmering. Roxas tried to reason that the sunlight must've made them do that, made them light up with rainbows, and this would've made sense.

Except that it was raining and overcast.

"What the hell," he said, and he probably should've said it when he'd first seen the wings and not after he'd seen the Technicolor in them. Roxas wasn't really thinking about that, though, since the girl's lips were quirking and she was smiling at him, a full blown grin that showed off perfect teeth. He was pretty sure his heart had stopped.

Then he looked at the people walking right past her with their umbrellas up or their heads down and hooded, and thought _why the hell is nobody else staring at her?_

When he looked back, she was gone.

Two hours later, he found out Sora was missing.

The next day, a girl with blond hair and white skin and a white dress and blue-blue eyes (not true blue or heartbreak blue or indescribable blue, just a blue-blue) sat down in Sora's seat and curled into herself like she didn't belong. And, in retrospect, she didn't. But Roxas didn't care about that; he was too busy replacing blond with red and blue with something better.

Her name was Naminé.

Five years later, her name is Kairi.

He's seventeen now, and he knows better than to believe in things like magic and faeries and fantasy worlds where iron is lethal and courts are ruthless. He tries to explain this to Naminé, who never says a word, except for when she does. Naminé, who's voice is soft and sweet. Naminé, who is almost pretty, but she's too thin, too frail, and the bags under her eyes never shrink, only grow.

Naminé, who stubbornly insists there is a whole other mythical, magical world somewhere beyond their grasp. She used to tell him Sora was there, back when he'd first gone missing and Roxas was still too messed up to do anything but stare blankly. She used to tell him Sora had been stolen away, like some kind of treasure.

"Changelings," she'd say with that gentle, sorrowful lilt of hers, and Roxas wanted to snap at her for even mentioning Sora, because _who the hell did she think she was she didn't know him she was just a replacement._

He thought of sky-blue and nervous laughter. Then he thought of vibrant red and rainbows.

Replacement.

She's stopped though. Now she talks of imps and fey and blood bonds and the power of a name. Roxas sees her pictures and sees the look on her face and he knows. He knows she is running from something, that there are some things he will never know, and he's alright with that.

He's walking her home from her art class when she asks, "Have you ever seen a girl who looks exactly like me only… better?"

He slows his steps and hesitates for a second before nodding. "Yeah."

"Ah," she goes, and then remains quiet the rest of the way.

* * *

"You can only see them from the corner of your eye, you know," Yuffie says one day over a cup of coffee. His has gone cold, because he's been sitting in the corner booth for at least two hours staring out the window, waiting for… something. Yuffie showed up half an hour earlier with a blueberry muffin, her physics homework, and a lot of questions. Now she's forgotten velocity and force and is more focused on his scarf.

He doesn't turn to look at her. "See who?"

Yuffie blinks at him. "The faeries."

_There's no such thing, _he thinks, and when he goes to say as much, he sees a flicker of something translucent and filmy flutter near the counter and a line of glitter streak through the air. He stops; thinks of wings that shone without the sun, and sees something whizz past him with pointy ears and stick limbs. He shifts in his seat, body moving towards the counter.

"Don't do that!" Yuffie snaps, reaching across the table and grabbing his chin with her thumb and forefinger. She turns his face back towards the window. "Didn't I _just _tell you that you can only see them when you're not looking?"

"… Ah," Roxas goes, and finally decides to order another coffee. The whirl of twiggy limbs that'd flown past him before settles on the shoulder of a girl with slicked back blond hair and a girlish laugh. He looks down at Yuffie's messy, loopy writing that takes up entire pages, front and back, and sees it lean over and tug hard on the girl's earlobe.

"What the fuck!" she shrieks, hand rushing up to meet the skin of her ear. The creature grins impishly and disappears in a puff of glitter with an elaborate twirl and a finger pointed in his direction. Roxas shakes his head quickly and looks back down at Yuffie's notes.

"You saw it too, yeah?" she says from beneath her blue-black bangs. Her arms slide across the table towards him as she leans forward, chin resting on her wrists. When he stares at her blankly, she reaches out to touch his forehead with the back of her hand. "You look kind of pale, Blondie. You sure you're alright?"

"Yeah," he chokes out, then winces. Clearing his throat, he tries again. "Yeah, I'm fine. I've just… been here for a while."

"Wanna go back to my place to finish, then?"

"Actually," he goes, halfway out of his seat already as three twigs with flickering wings and bug eyes twirl around the barista's head, "I need to go. Talk to someone, that is." He swings his backpack over one shoulder, downs the rest of his coffee, and begins rolling his skateboard towards the door. "Just, uh, come find me at lunch tomorrow."

"Okaaaaaay." He doesn't see her eyebrow quirk, but he imagines that's what she's doing. "Later, freaky."

"Later," he mumbles, and then takes off through busy city streets towards Naminé's apartment complex, glass door closing with the sound of wind chimes behind him.

* * *

Naminé's parents died in a fire when she was young. Firefighters said it was miraculous she made it out alive, as they watched the burnt ashes of her home smoulder on the ground. There was nothing left, not even a photo she could hold onto. Naminé thinks it's kind of funny, how she's just supposed to take on the last name of a man she never knew and listen to compliments on how she has the eyes of a woman she'd never remember. Roxas just thinks she's lucky, but never says so.

She lives with her grandmother now, on the third floor of an apartment complex just behind the antique shop no one ever talks about. Roxas stopped using the front steps and ringer a long time ago. Now, he climbs the fire escape and is greeted with the sight of Naminé sprawled across the living room carpet, surrounded by sketchpads sitting in toppling towers and pencil crayons that rolled away when she dumped them out of the box.

The rest of the apartment looks old. Under photos of her and Roxas and sketches done at midnight and then framed, the walls are stained. Wallpaper peels off in the corners of the room, and everything is covered in a thin layer of dust. Naminé's room is the only room that doesn't look as old as it is; pure white on white on white with pencils and paints lined up in perfect rows on her desk and nightstand. He thinks her room suits her: no colour, except for when there is (_like red hair and blue-blue eyes and glitter and –)._

He pushes violet, moth-eaten curtains aside and takes a few cautious steps forward, because Naminé only draws when she's anxious or scared. "Naminé?"

She jumps, even though his voice is soft, and looks over her shoulder towards some point just beyond his head, not directly at him. "Roxas?" Her pencil falls out of her hand. "What are you doing here so late?"

He glances at the clock hanging above the peeling paint of the front door. "It's only three."

She blinks and gets to her feet. "Really?" Her head cocks to the side. "I thought it was later…"

When she sits down on the floral covered couch and pats the spot next to her, Roxas says, "You didn't sleep last night, did you?"

She sighs and tucks white-blond hair behind her ear. Roxas runs a hand through his own bleached spikes and thinks he understands why people think they're related, sometimes. "No," she mumbles, biting her lip. "I didn't."

He sits down next to her and holds back a grimace as the cushions sink almost right into the frame. "Nightmares?"

She nods, humming in response. When the same white-blond strand of hair she'd just pushed back falls forward again, it's Roxas who moves it behind her ear, more out of habit then anything. "You should talk to someone."

"You should, too," she replies, her eyes gentle and clear when she looks at him. Her fingers press against the bags under his eyes. "You haven't been sleeping, either, have you?"

"… Keep dreaming of Sora," he mutters, frowning at his hands. Naminé's fingers move from his face to his wrists. "And all this weird shit keeps happening. I saw something at _Hearts _while I was trying to help Yuffie with her homework. She went off on some crazy tangent about not being able to see faeries unless you're not looking, and the next thing you know, I'm seeing things flying all over the place."

"I think," Naminé goes, small hands sliding down his palms, "that it's time you start believing, Roxas."

He tilts his head and raises his eyebrows at her in silent disbelief. "Naminé, we've been through this already. There's no such thing as faeries."

"You don't believe that."

"Yeah, I do."

"Liar."

He scowls at her. "How would you know? You spend all your time in here drawing who knows what and talking about magic. It doesn't exist, Naminé. Get real."

She drops his hands and stands up, smoothing down her white-white skirt, smiling sadly. "Roxas, there is so much you don't know," she murmurs, fingertips pressing together. His scowl deepens. "You have to believe, though. Something… something is going to happen, I think, and you _have to believe_. It might be your only chance."

He pushes himself to his feet and snorts. "My only chance at _what, _exactly?"

"Finding Sora."

His eyes flash. "He's missing, Naminé."

"Because the faeries took hi –"

"I told you not to say things like that!"

Her eyes are the ones that flash this time, and he almost, almost, _almost _steps back because with eyes like that she's almost red haired and smiling perfect teeth at him. "And I told you, if you ever want to see Sora again, you have to accept the fact that not everything is as cut and dry, black and white as you seem to think." She seems to collect herself then, fingers coming to twist together behind her as she lowers her gaze and lets her shoulders slump. "I hate seeing you so miserable all the time, Roxas."

He's silent, for just a moment, staring at her curiously. When she lifts her head and he sees the ice blue he's known for five years, he takes a step towards the window. "I can take care of myself," he says flatly. "Get some sleep, Naminé."

"Roxas –"

"I'll see you tomorrow."

He's gone before she can answer, down the fire escape and into the alley that separates her building from the bookstore. It starts raining just as he steps out onto the main street, skateboard strapped to his bag. When he checks the time on his phone, the battery dies, and it's as he's shoving it back into his pocket that the real downpour starts.

Everyone on the street starts moving a little bit faster, umbrellas and newspapers rising to cover heads. He ducks under a nearby awning and glares at anyone who comes near him. He wants to go home, but instinct tells him to wait out the worst of the torrential storm nearby. He jogs down the street a ways, then ducks into the first building he sees. It's only after he shuts the door behind him that he realizes he's in the antique shop.

Naminé used to tell him the place was cursed, because that's what her grandmother had told her. Then they got older and started to realize that the place wasn't cursed or haunted, just old and abandoned for the most part. The door had been kicked in years before – how or why, no one knew – but it wasn't like anyone wanted to break in anyways, so it had never been fixed. Roxas is, admittedly, thankful for this.

It's too dark inside to see anything. He steps forward and regrets it as he gets a face full of cobwebs. "Uh, hello?" he calls, wiping at his forehead and cheeks furiously. His voice echoes off the walls. "Is anybody in here?"

Silence. He fumbles along the wall for a light switch, finds one, and flips it. The whole building is suddenly illuminated with dust filtered light; shelves upon shelves of cracked vases, porcelain trinkets, and shattered glass figurines greet him. Grandfather clocks line both sides of the room, the occasional rug or table making its way in between. Roxas squints, despite the dim lighting, and searches for a place to sit.

Beyond the furniture is the front desk, one leg propped up on a thick encyclopaedia, and the rickety chair serving as its counterpart. Roxas groans under his breath and manoeuvres his way between all the odds and ends sitting on the floor. Dropping his backpack on the ground, he moves the chair over to the nearest window, swipes as much of the dust off as he can with the sleeve of his shirt, and sits down, waiting.

It's quiet at first, the steady ticking of a few clocks the only thing that fills the silence. But then, as the storm outside grows steadily louder, the noise inside begins to do the same. It starts with a creak on the stairs to his right. Then one of the clocks chimes seven times for no reason. Finally, two vases topple and hit the floor with a crash just as something on the second floor thumps against the ground and sends flecks of plaster raining down on his head.

Roxas, who is not easily unnerved, simply stares out the window and continues to wait for the rain and thunder to pass with the same blank expression and the hairs on the back of his neck standing straight up.

It is quiet again for several minutes. Then, something like an explosion rings upstairs, more plaster falls, and Roxas is gripping the edge of the windowsill as the whole room starts to shake violently.

_Shit, earthquake, _he thinks, and decides to go for the desk. He hasn't even turned around when everything goes still.

"Aw, man, you're no fun!" Someone says right next to his ear. He jerks, head whipping to the side. A boy with half-spiked hair and scales on his neck grins impishly at him from his crouched position on top of the desk. "Well, that got a reaction out of you. Finally. I thought we were going to have to start summoning demons or something."

"_What the hell?"_

"Language," someone else drawls, pushing away from the wall nearest them and stepping into the light. Roxas stares at the stranger sitting on the desk with the webbed fingers for a little longer before turning to face the newcomer. "Let's keep it PG, alright?"

Red hair, slanted green eyes, Cheshire cat smile, fangs and claws. Roxas rubs his eyes and does a double take just to make sure he's seeing things right. Then he pinches his arm discreetly, and when he doesn't wake up, goes, "What. The. _Fuck."_

The one with the red hair taps his temple. "Hey, I said keep it PG. Got it memorized?"

"I'm dreaming."

"No, you aren't," the one on the desk says. "You know you aren't, too. I saw you pinch yourself."

Roxas momentarily forgets he's being cornered by two monsters and says, "_Die."_

"Well aren't you pleasant," the blond one says, beaming. "I like him. Can we keep him, Axel?"

_Axel _looks at him dryly. "I don't know. Hey, kid, how do you feel about playing pet to a couple of imps?"

"Go to hell."

The redhead snorts. "Well, that answers that. C'mon, Demyx, I'm sure you can find some pretty little girl princess or something to play with somewhere else."

"Aw, maaaan," Demyx whines. "But it's raining."

Axel looks at him, deadpan. "You're a water nymph."

"Meh," Demyx shrugs. "Whatever. Fine. See ya, kiddo."

Roxas blinks as they both disappear in puffs of smoke. The rain outside dies down and it's as he's swinging his bag over his shoulder that Axel reappears with a smirk and flick to his forehead. "By the way," he says, with his typical drawl and his condescending look, "Sora says hi."

He's gone, just as Roxas' hand shoots up to grab his wrist. "Wait!"

He stands there for ten minutes, hopeful, then exhales hard. "Damn it." He looks up at the cracks in the ceiling. "I need to talk to Naminé."

So he goes back.

* * *

"I lied," is the first thing she says to him when he crawls back in through her window. "I didn't stay up all night because of nightmares."

"Oh?" He tries not to look too surprised. "Why'd you stay up, then?"

She's shaking, he realizes, as she sits down on the couch again and picks at a loose thread in the cushions. "I've been drawing all night. It's strange – I only draw when I don't want to deal with something, but right now I feel like I _need _to draw because something's going to happen."

Roxas steps up next to her and asks, "What've you been drawing?"

"I don't know." She looks scared as she pulls one sketchbook out of the middle of a teetering pile, ignoring the way the rest of them fall, and flips open to the first page. "Things like this."

Roxas takes the sketch from her and sits down, staring at bug eyes and twiggy limbs and pointing fingers. "And you," he stops, starts again. "You don't know what this thing is?"

"No," she goes, almost dreamily, "but I can see it so clearly. It's like I _have_ seen it, or like I'm seeing it through someone else, it's so clear." Her hands are moving in quick, choppy movements Roxas can barely follow, now. Her eyes are bright with… something. "I know how it moves and how it flies and how it disappears in puffs of glitter, but I've never actually seen one. And still, I just… _know."_

Roxas chews on the inside of his cheek and thinks of the girl with the high voice and the way she'd shrieked when the twiggy limbed creature had tugged on her ear, the way no one else had seen it fly. "Naminé," he begins slowly, still staring down at the sketchpad in his lap. "You know how you were telling me about changelings and shit?"

Her hands still as she looks at him cautiously. "Yes?"

He swallows, mouth suddenly dry. "Well, uh, hypothetically speaking, what would happen if a human, you know, saw one of them? A faerie, I mean. If a human who wasn't taken saw a faerie, would they have to… give the changeling back? Because humans in the human world know they exist, or something?"

"I don't know," she says gently, more Naminé, less vibrancy now. "Faeries barely follow their ownrules, much less ones set by anyone else. And, to be honest Roxas, I don't think even a Fey Court could make a faerie bring back a changeling if he or she didn't want to."

This is probably the longest conversation they've ever had with one another that didn't have awkward pauses or hesitant touches in between. Roxas leans his elbows on his knees and stares at the dusty glass of the coffee table. "So, a faerie could just take a human kid and swap them out with a faerie kid without anyone in either world knowing?"

Naminé nods lazily, leaning down to snatch a grey pencil crayon up off the floor. "They don't need permission," she goes, as she takes the sketchpad back from him. "So long as they replace the child with one of their own and make all the necessary arrangements, they can do whatever they want."

Roxas isn't thinking of arrangements, though. He's thinking of red and something more than blue and translucent glitter and _the day Sora went missing I saw a faerie and she saw me and she knew I was waiting and she took him._

"She took him."

Naminé doesn't look up from her drawing. "Who did?"

"The girl."

"Which girl?"

Roxas scowls, frustrated. "The one you and me see every once in a while."

"I see a lot of girls every once in a while, Roxas," Naminé says airily, head tilted. "You'll have to be more specific."

"The fucking faerie one!" he snaps, getting up. "The one I saw when Sora disappeared. The one you say looks like you only better. The one –" He freezes, staring down at Naminé's doodle. Side bangs, straight hair, slanted eyes, perfect teeth, full lower lip. Wings, wings, _wings. _"Her," he finally says, pointing. "Her."

Naminé's looks up at him with her clear blue eyes that are no longer clear, but something a little darker but no less full of light, and it takes everything he has not to shake. "Her?" she says, with her not-quite voice and that not-quite lift of her lips.

He finds his voice faster than he thought he would. "You."

"It's nice to finally meet you, Roxas," she says, smiling. He tells himself he doesn't like how she says his name because it's still Naminé's voice, just not Naminé's drawl. "Now, who is it that I apparently took?"

"Sora," he's the one shaking now, fists tight as his nails bite into his palms. "You took Sora."

She smiles sadly, then. "No, I didn't." He goes to call her a liar, but then she says, "But I know who did."

"Tell me."

She shakes her (Naminé's?) head. "It's not that simple, Roxas."

"Why not?"

She looks at him then, really looks at him, with those eyes he'll never forget, but never quite remember the same way, either. "Because you don't even know who you are, and you want to run headfirst into something you can't even imagine."

"The hell do you mean, I don't know who I –"

"It was you or Sora."

He stops, stares. "W – what."

"There was a choice," she says, averting her eyes. "_I _had a choice. You or Sora. Only one in each world, you know? And there were two. So they made me choose. And I couldn't…" She inhales through her nose and lowers her lashes. "I saw you first, and I wanted you. But I couldn't. So I chose Sora."

"_What are you talking about?"_

"I don't have much time left," she tells him. "Using a changeling's body as a host takes up a lot of energy. Go to the antique shop at midnight. I'll meet you there."

He can't help it; he snorts. "Is that place like, the meeting place for all the_ faeries_ or whatever the hell you are, or something?"

Her smile is a little truer, this time. "Something like that. Don't worry, though; I'll tell Axel not to bite."

Her posture shifts, shoulders hunching again, and Roxas knows she – whoever _she _is – is gone. "Naminé?"

She blinks rapidly, eyes unfocused as she looks at him. "Yeah?"

_Sora says hi. _"I believe you, now."


	2. K — a little vanity

**A/N:** Oh what's up hella goddamn long overdue unedited update, how you doin' ?

**Disclaimer:** All Kingdom Hearts & Final Fantasy characters used belong to their respective owners. The song is also not mine. Everything else is, though.

* * *

**Depth Of Sky  
**KAIRI: A Little Vanity  
(The Hush Sound — "_Molasses_")

* * *

"Why are you meeting him?"

Kairi pulls her hands through her hair, magic pressing against the tips of her fingers. Auburn fades to black, hair sliding up past her shoulders, to her chin, shorter than before. "He has a right to know, Riku."

"So does Xion," he snaps, but it's not angry, just confused. "So does Ven. So did Vanitas. But we don't tell _them _anything, do we?"

"Roxas is different," she says simply. The faint green tinge to her skin disappears; a truck's horn blares up on the highway. Riku snorts.

"You're just making this personal because he saw you the day we took Sora. Because of who he _was_." He looks at her patiently while they wait for the bridge to stop shaking. "You can't make this personal, Kairi."

She scowls. "Why not?"

"There can only be one on each side, remember?" Water slides down the slope of his nose. "Those are the rules."

She stands slowly, brushes the dirt off her jeans. Her hip cocks. "What if I said I'm not playing the game anymore?"

Riku blinks, like he hasn't considered that. "Ansem would —"

"Would what? Kill me?" She flicks her now-dark bangs back. "He's more likely to get rid of Ven and let Roxas come home, you know that."

"Is that what you want?" She hates how he sounds so disappointed, how low his voice is. She shakes her head.

"God, no." Fingers curl against her sides. "I just want everyone to be exactly where they belong. Where they _really _belong."

"He won't let you."

Kairi smiles, gently. "I have to try."

Riku's hand drags over his face. "You always do."

* * *

The upper floor of the shop is a mess — the ends of the curtains are singed, rows of books charred. A painting on the wall has been burnt from the middle outwards. There's a pile of ashes sitting in the middle of a desk near the back window.

Kairi steps out of the bookshelf, skin tingling and shifting back into place, and rolls her eyes. "Axel, you're stupid."

The ashes sweep upwards and swirl together until a mess of awkward, stilted angles sit against the desk. Axel's lips curl. "What's up, Princess?" He clicks his fingers, elbow snapping out. "Nice hair, by the way."

"Thanks," she deadpans. "I'm waiting for someone. Why are you here?" She gestures to the chair still smouldering next to her. "Besides the obvious."

"Conveniently enough, I'm also waiting for someone." His expression twists in a way that is all too familiar, right down to the slightly exposed tip of his canine. "Does Xion know you've been stealing her face yet?"

Kairi fingers the short hairs that brush the nape of her neck. "I don't plan on telling her anytime soon. Do you?"

He shrugs, sneer fading. "Roxas is on his way."

"Oh." She tilts her head. "What do you want, Axel?"

He kicks off the desk and saunters towards her, chin tipping upwards. "You're not the only one who wants him back, you know." The pad of his thumb slides against the inside of her wrist. "Just because he went and forgot doesn't mean that I have."

Kairi chews the inside of her cheek. "We have to get Ven back to the iron side."

"I thought you weren't playing the game anymore?"

She jerks, teeth clamping together, and tastes metal. His grip tightens. "How did you —"

He shushes her and points to the doorway. "Blondie's here." Swearing drifts up from the floor below. "Kid always did know how to make an entrance."

Her tongue presses against the scrape near her molars. She turns away, wrist sliding out of his hand easily. "Riku's afraid Ansem will find out."

"And you?" His breath fans across the shell of her ear. Spider-leg fingers splay over her shoulder. He's so close, her back feels warm. When she thinks about it, he had always been that close. "Are you scared, babe?"

She shrugs him off. "Is personal space such a foreign concept to you?" A pause, then, "and I think we should be cautious about this."

"Since when," Axel mutters, and she can sense his hands hovering over her, "have you _ever _been _cautious_?"

Kairi glances away. "Since now."

She makes it into the hallway before she hears him. "I didn't realize 'now' and 'Roxas' were synonymous."

She doesn't look back.

* * *

The first thing Roxas says when he sees her is, "What the hell. Your hair."

She blinks, hard. "Yeah?"

He puts down the doll he's been eyeing with vague disinterest and looks confused. "Uh, never mind. Where's Sora?"

"You'll see him soon enough, I promise." She presses her tongue against the roof of her mouth at the rush of pain flickering across her skin. The window near the front door is wide open and all she smells past the damp pavement is iron, hot and burning. "How's Naminé doing?"

He doesn't quite meet her eyes, but gazes off in her general direction instead. "She's… fine. She won't stop drawing you." His eyes flit to her hair briefly. "Well, the you from before."

She lets the glamour fall long enough for the red to show completely. Through her bang she sees his surprise. "I'm still me. It's just a disguise."

Roxas frowns, crosses his arms. "Why do you need a disguise?"

"So I don't stand out."

"Why would you stand out? You look like everyone else." He cocks his head. He only ever does that when he's lying. "No one would notice you."

"You did," she points out. He looks at her, deadpan.

"You had wings," he snorts, "of course I noticed."

"Humans aren't supposed to be able to see them," she says purposely, and tries to gauge his reaction. She has to get him to remember — she can't play with his memories, not the way Nam — "You noticed me for another reason, then saw my wings. I can't risk anyone else seeing me the way you did, so this is the face I use to blend in more."

He's quiet for a while, fingers tapping against his jeans as he frowns at a grandfather clock. Then, "everything about you is familiar."

Kairi's lips twitch. "Really?"

His scowl deepens at the edges. He watches her play with her hair with his blank blue eyes. "I know you somehow, don't I?"

"Well—"

"That's cold, brat," Axel cuts in, suddenly at Roxas' shoulder. Kairi's been wondering when he'd decide show up. "You remember her, but not your best friend?" His sneer is laced with something like hurt. "How rude."

Kairi's lips thin and Roxas, who'd barely flinched at his sudden appearance, glares. "What the hell, Axel."

Axel beams. "You remember my name."

"Well, no shit," Roxas grunts. "You told me it a few hours ago. Dumbass."

They all pause. Roxas' eyes widen and Axel folds his arms smugly. Kairi twists her hands in her skirt; what if it's all too soon for him? Or too late. "Um."

"What," Roxas goes, then stops, like he doesn't know what he's trying to say. She watches the muscles in his throat work. "Why did that feel—"

"Natural?" Axel suggests, fangs curling over his lower lip. "Take a wild guess, kid."

Roxas is silent, eyebrows furrowing. Kairi always knew Axel would be better at kick starting all the things forgotten in him, but didn't think he'd be able to do it so easily; Roxas' mind had always been more complicated. "That day you saw me, the day Sora vanished, why did you notice me?"

Roxas' head snaps towards her. "You were just standing in the middle of the street," he explains. She hears him grind his teeth. "I just… saw you."

"You were looking for her," Axel goes, all shifty little habits he can't control — he's snapping his fingers now. "You felt something familiar — _someone _familiar, and you found her."

Roxas stares at her, tips his head towards Axel, glances back. "What are you—"

"Remember," Axel urges, taking the lead. "Naminé draws Princess here over and over, has been drawing her for years, but says she's only seen her twice, right?" Roxas nods, and Axel, who shouldn't know anything about Naminé at all, grins his wide, sinister grin. "They look alike for a reason, Rox."

She can see the wheels start turning, and maybe it's the nickname, or maybe it's just the words, but Roxas is relaxing. She can feel the bit of magic in him he'd had to hide slowly crawling its way back up under his skin. "Humans can't see fey wings," she goes, repeating old lines. They're running him in circles for a reason. If they can just get him _back _—

Axel leans in close, and taps Roxas' forehead. "Got it memorized?"

That's the catalyst.

"Well," Roxas steps back, expression falling flat, and inhales hard. His lips curl and his chest hitches, and she thinks, hopes, prays he's starting to smell the iron again like they do. "Well, shit."

"Yeah," Axel drawls, the sharp shadow of his jaw working back and forth. "That just about covers it, I think."

Roxas starts, and Kairi moves forward, desperately waiting for him to realize who he used to be, who they used to be, what they'd almost been, and for just a moment he looks at them like had once before, before he'd decided to leave.

(like he —)

The back door crashes and Axel runs his bony hands through his hair with a laugh tugging up at his lips because he'd seen it too, seen that look and Kairi—

(— needed them)

Kairi smiles.

* * *

She tells Sora.

"So he really doesn't remember anything?" Sora swings his legs over the edge of the library roof and perches his head on his hands. He doesn't get serious very often, but when it happens, people always listen. "Do you think you two managed to get through?"

Kairi sighs into the crook of her elbow. The plaster is cool against her stomach. "I think we might've scared him more than anything else."

Sora laughs. "Roxas doesn't get scared, you know that."

"The Roxas _we_ knew didn't get scared, you mean," she mumbles, and gazes at the sunrise from under her eyelashes. "He was so… blank when we found him. So empty."

"I was pretty blah when you found me," Sora says, watching her from the corner of his eye. "These things happen gradually, you know."

"You remembered." She rolls onto her side and stares right at him. "You knew all along who and what you were; you just played the part until…"

"Until Vanitas died," he finishes quietly. "His parents…"

"Always had a feeling," she says softly. He shifts towards her, eyes questioning. "Parents always know, even if they don't realize it. They were more devastated those couple of days he went missing, when Ansem had us take him, then when you disappeared."

She almost regrets telling him, but he doesn't look sad, just faintly nostalgic and maybe a little content. "I'm glad," he tells her, with an open honesty only he knew how to convey. "I never wanted to hurt them."

"None of us did." She fiddles with her charm bracelet. He sits patiently, not watching her, but waiting. "We have to give them back."

He turns to her, the left side of his mouth kicking upward. "I'm glad you're finally starting to see things my way."

"… What?"

He leans back on his elbows and straightens his legs out in front of him. "I've been trying to figure out a way to get Xion and Ven out of here for years." He shakes his head. "We have to trade them back."

"They won't let us," Kairi breathes, "not without Ansem's permission, and you know he won't want to lose his two most prized test subjects."

Sora's eyebrows quirk and he grins, wide and mischievous. "So what's the one and only option we have left?"

Kairi stares, swallows, squeezes her eyes tight. "We find a new court King."

Sora touches her hand, fingers curling around her own gently. "You don't have to do this," he says solemnly. "You've done so much already, Kairi, and he _raised _you. It's okay if you can't keep going."

"I don't," she loses her thought and tries for a better one. "Sora, it's _Roxas_."

"You know," Sora muses, watching the sky turn a dusky shade of orange, "Axel told me you'd say something a little like that."

"Because he'd say the exact same thing."

Sora's expression turns sheepish. "I… I always did remember, you're right," he cracks his neck, "But I was happy there, on that side. The iron didn't hurt, and Roxas was there. There was no magic, no pretending. Just living." His eyes close. "It was enough."

Kairi bites her lip. "I'm sorry I took that from you."

"Don't be." He touches her palm. "It wasn't worth the price we paid. Roxas chose to leave because he thought he needed to. I left because I had to. But Xion and Ven never had that kind of choice." She sits up and sits on the edge of the roof next to him, hip to hip, and the resolve in his voice is firm. "I'm exactly where I need to be," he murmurs, "and so should everyone else."

"Axel wants to go find him tomorrow." There's a scrape on her shin she doesn't remember getting. "Try and see if he's remembered anything. We can't bring him back until Gran — Ansem's gone, though."

"Me and Riku will handle that." She looks at him, wide eyed. "Riku already has an idea of where to look."

She gawks. "How? I only just told him about the whole thing today!"

"You know how he is," Sora says loftily. "Persistent and awesome to the core."

She giggles. "Alright. We'll stick with Roxas, then. See if we can get any of his powers back." She pauses, then, "he… he knows Naminé."

Sora tenses slightly. "Xion will want to meet her, I think."

"And you?" She cocks her head. He groans. "You can both see her."

"Assuming Xion doesn't try and kill us for keeping this from her," he grumbles. "Ven, too."

"I could take 'em," she says sweetly, and grins at the elbow he digs into her ribs. "So, I'm feeling very optimistic right now."

"Riku tells me I'm contagious," Sora says flatly, lips trembling. Kairi nods, and thinks of how the tone of his voice is so much like how Roxas sounds. But Sora is pretending, and Roxas wasn't even aware part of him was a lie to begin with. "I think we can do this."

"Axel will complain if we don't," she gripes. The back of her shoe scrapes the wall. "_Forever."_

"Got it memorized?" Sora goes, sounding pained, and she snickers into his shoulder. "We'll keep in touch how we always do, alright?"

"Alright," she says, and wonders if Roxas will one day remember that, too. Sora nudges her and raises his eyebrows.

"You think about him a lot more than anyone realizes, don't you?"

She blinks a few times, and the sun finally rises past the hill, pink and orange and bright. "Yes," she says truthfully, feeling very much like she did once back when she was sixteen - really sixteen, not the glamoured sixteen she had to be until things started to break - "yes, I really do."

She wonders how Roxas will feel once she tells him he hasn't been seventeen for a very long time.


End file.
